21 Oct 2013

European Union Commissioner for Climate Action, Ms Connie Hedegaard has called on developed countries to deliver on their financial pledges from the 2010 Copenhagen climate change conference.

Ms Hedegaard, who  attended the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), told the media at a press conference that it was important for other developed countries to join Europe and deliver on their financial pledges. She revealed that Europe and all its member states had met their financial commitments in climate projects for adaptation, forestry and mitigation which have benefited many African countries benefited.

“Europe and its member states have delivered exactly what we promised in Copenhagen in 2010 and I assure that we will continue to do so,” she said. Ms Hedegaard pointed out that issues of climate change were rising on the African continent and were already being felt in the form of water shortage, drought and livestock death. She said everything had become more unpredictable, adding that people no longer knew when to sow seeds or when to harvest.

It was therefore urgent for the world community to get together and find ways to address climate change issues, she stressed. Ms Hedegaard further called for a sense of urgency among the world community, especially developed countries, to move their position and agree on a climate deal.

She noted that the European Union agreed and had noted with concern that the world was already late in addressing climate change issues, hence the importance of taking the 2015 deadline very seriously in order to have a concrete agreement at the conference to be held in Paris.

“We would like to work with the African continent to show that there is a concrete ambition level reflected in the agreement made from the just ended conference,” she said. It is very important,Ms Hedegaard said,  for conferences to have a timeline on firm decisions that have been taken as well as to have political discussions around the architecture.

She encouraged ministers of environment to start going on political discussions about the future architecture of the agreement they made in preparation for their delivery at the upcoming climate change conference that will be held in Warsaw, Poland next month.  ENDS